


Why are you even here?

by orphan_account



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: High School AU, M/M, nerd fest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4766513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dinesh gets placed in an AP physics class that he is passionate about, but it is spoiled by Gilfoyle's apathy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [d2fmeasurement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/d2fmeasurement/gifts).



> I think that DineshGilfoyle posted an AU kinda like this and I couldn't resist.

It was Dinesh's first day of school in Toronto since moving from Pakistan, and honestly? He was extraordinarily excited. His schedule had him in an advanced physics class, which sounded extraordinarily exciting, even though he hadn't even met the teacher yet. The night before starting class, Dinesh could barely sleep, because his mind kept racing with hypotheticals. _What if some punk guy completely ruins my life? What if I look like a total dork? What if I don't get a girlfriend?_ His mind was racing. By the time he had to get up in the morning, he was running on pure adrenalin. 

Dinesh rolled out of bed and put on what seemed to be a reasonable rugby shirt. He hoped that other kids wore rugby shirts too, or else it would get awkward quickly. Nonetheless, by the time he was at the school, he had completely forgotten about the rugby shirt and was completely focused on what other kids were doing. Dinesh had decided long ago that observation was much easier than having to strike up a new conversation. Plus he didn't want to make friends in the wrong crowd, and he was dead set of having friends exclusively in AP and honors classes. He started walking to his first class of the day, AP physics, and was trying hard to not lose his way, but it was difficult considering that this school had many many students.

When he walked into Dr. Baker's class, he saw a seating chart on the board.  _Just my luck. I'm sitting next to some rebel child._ Dinesh did not want to be associating with some kid named Bertram. He had longer hair for a start, and was wearing suboptimal clothing in his picture on the seating chart.  _Who even wears flannel anymore?_ he thought to himself. He nervously awaited the arrival of Bertram. The bell rang, and still no signs of Bertram, and Dinesh desperately hoped that this Bertram would decide to ditch class every day. But alas, that was not the case, as the door opened quickly, and a kid with longer hair, glasses, and a flannel shirt rushed into the room. He sat down next to Dinesh.

"Hello class! I'm Dr. Baker I'm going to be your physics teacher this year," a kind brunette said. She set down her coffee mug and started passing out the course syllabus. "These are going to be your seats for a little while, so I hope that works for you. In this class, I'm expecting you guys to work hard, because it is AP, and you didn't have to take it." Dr. Baker finished her sentence and moved back to the front of the room. "Today I want you to get to know whomever is sitting next to you by asking them some various questions that I have written on the board. Try your hardest to answer all of them please!" With that, Dinesh realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach that he would have to partner up with that Bertram kid. So much for befriending great influences.

"I'm Bertram. My friends call me Gilfoyle," Bertram, or rather now Gilfoyle, deadpanned.

"Hello Gilfoyle," Dinesh said, hopeful that Gilfoyle wouldn't at least make his life hell. Dinesh decided to get started on the questions. "Who is your favorite physicist," he asked, hopeful that this weird "sin" act is just a facade, and that maybe Gilfoyle was a good egg after all.

"Look. Why don't you just make up some answers. The minimal effort required would be optimal," Gilfoyle said. 

"Wait, but didn't Dr. Baker just say that this was a class for hard workers? Didn't you need a recommendation and an A in chem to get in?" Dinesh was quickly realizing the power of reading people.

"Yeah, well maybe I'll be able to glide through this class like I did with chem," Gilfoyle said.

That was the end of the conversation for that day. Dinesh ended up pretending that Einstein was Gilfoyle's favorite physicist, because in Dinesh's mind Gilfoyle deserved the physicist everyone knew about, not someone cool like Feynman.

This continued on for days, until on the first Friday of the school year, they were forced to partner up again, this time for the classic "car on a track" lab. Dinesh was hoping to partner up with someone other than Gilfoyle, but of course the stars did not align. Why weren't there any kids in the class with last names starting in D,E, or F? Why was he cursed by the alphabet?

"Do you want to read the procedure while I get the car and ramp," Dinesh tried to be diplomatic again.

"Nah. I don't care much for cars. Or ramps. This seems less interesting than the Economist or whatever bullshit magazines you read," Gilfoyle said with low enthusiasm. This was the last straw for Dinesh. He looked down on apathetic kids sure, but he let them go on with their lives as long as it wasn't influencing him. But, Gilfoyle was putting Dinesh's grade into jeopardy, and Dinesh wouldn't stand for it.

"Why are you even in this class? You're absolutely apathetic about everything, in a class that's meant to let kids passionate about STEM explore their interests more thoroughly. You are putting my grade in risky terrain, and you don't even know anything about physics. You just make other people do shit for you," Dinesh said. He wasn't used to emotional outbursts like this, but he was pissed. Gilfoyle was  _not_ going to ruin his favorite subject.

Gilfoyle stayed silent for the rest of the day, but at least he worked on the lab too. At least Dinesh's grade wasn't going to be shot either, and maybe he'd just gotten Gilfoyle on the right path again. Maybe he made his punk table-mate less problematic. He'd have to see about that.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hello class, why don't we begin by talking about the woman who contributed the most to physics, Marie Curie?" Dr. Baker said, setting down her coffee mug.

Suddenly, Gilfoyle raised his hand. Dinesh was extremely surprised, granted that his table-mate had just abandoned his usual apathy. Dr. Baker looked surprised as well.

"Yes..." she had to consult the seating chart because she never once had to call on Gilfoyle.

"f we look at every branch of physics, we can see that Emmy Noether contributed as much, if not more to Physics. She solved the problem of general relativity. She also determined the conserved quantities for every system of physical laws that possesses some continuous symmetry, so if we are going to praise Curie for radiation, we may as well look at how Noether supported Einstein and so many other scientists but got very little recognition," Gilfoyle said, he then propped his feet up on the table, as if to say  _come at me bro, I know I'm right_. Dinesh just kept staring at Gilfoyle, realizing that he could listen to him talk physics for an extended period of time, which was unusual. Maybe the whole punk thing was just a facade.

Dr. Baker also looked quite impressed, even excited that her most apathetic pupil was making a great turnaround. She continued the lesson on radiation and alpha particles, but for once Dinesh was the one not listening. He kept replaying everything Gilfoyle had said in his head, in a sort of fascination at how Gilfoyle had phrased his statement about Noether.

It continued on for days like this, Dr. Baker would mention something, and Gilfoyle would correct her, with more updated knowledge on the subject. Dinesh, once the shining pupil of the class, felt left behind. Dr. Baker's lessons began moving faster and faster so that she could accommodate Gilfoyle's background knowledge on the subject. She began to veer a bit off of the curriculum, just to get back on the track for the other students. It was in this confusing bramble of concepts that Dinesh found himself entangled about a week after he had, regrettably, said "why are you even here?" to Gilfoyle.

"So, I know I'm not supposed to teach this now, but since Bertram asked, there are in fact other conservations. There's the conservation of baryons, charge, and total lepton number. While I'm not expecting you to know this, I do want you to get angular momentum. If you struggle with this, you may want to ask a classmate," Dr. Baker said, leaving the room.

Gilfoyle and Dinesh were still in the room, Gilfoyle presumably waiting until the last possible moment to leave so he could arrive to his next class "fashionably late." Dinesh was just staring down at his notes. He was confused about how angular momentum could be conserved, and he was extremely frustrated. Frustrated enough to punch his notebook, which he proceeded to do. This was met with a strange look from Gilfoyle.

"Why exactly are you punching your notebook?" Gilfoyle asked, in his trademark deadpan voice.

"If I could get rid of a concept on the test, it would be conservation of angular momentum. Dr. Baker keeps explaining it, but she won't draw it out, and I tend to think better when I can draw out things on diagrams. That's why I like Feynman. He made everything more visual," Dinesh said. 

"If you came over to my house or something, I bet I could draw it out for you in a way that would make since," Gilfoyle said.

"How do I know you grasp the content?" Dinesh asked, wary of the offer, given the apathy he had seen in Gilfoyle earlier in the year.

"If you don't learn it from me you could go in for help. But really, what choice do you have?" Gilfoyle offered. Dinesh could almost see a sliver of a smile on Gilfoyle's face.

"Fine. If you give my address, I'll be there at 4:30 pm," Dinesh said. Gilfoyle passed the sheet of paper to Dinesh. Dinesh slipped it into his bag, got up, and left the class room

\------

Dinesh arrived at Gilfoyle's house ten minutes early, but he rang the doorbell at exactly 4:30. To his surprise, a girl with wavy, dirty-blonde hair opened the door. She saw Dinesh and shouted upstairs "Bertie! Your date is here!"

Gilfoyle stomps down the stairs, shouting "fuck you" at his sister. He looks at Dinesh with a vacant glance until Dinesh holds up his notebook. Something clicked, and Gilfoyle let him in.

"You can put your shoes there, and your coat on that rack. I don't care, but my mom will have a coronary if she sees a speck of dirt on the carpet. My room's in the basement, I'll show you there," Gilfoyle says.

Dinesh follows Gifoyle's lead down into the basement, which was a stark contrast from the rest of the house. The other floors gave off a 2.5-children-and-a-white-picket-fence feel, but clearly the basement was Gilfoyle's domain. Dinesh looked around, and he saw a computer but it was clearly one that Gilfoyle had built himself.

"Hey, did you build that?" Dinesh asks, trying to sound like he cared less than he did. That part was hard.

"Uh yeah. I can only trust what I build right?" Gilfoyle replies, trying to clear some space on a coffee table.

"So do you specialize in hardware?" Dinesh wanted to know.

"Yeah, but I'm also interested in systems architecture. Sounds really interesting. Are you interested in computers?" Gilfoyle replied, pushing a giant textbook onto the table.

"Yeah. I've learned Java, and I'm working on C right now" Dinesh hoped to God that he sounded cool enough to Gilfoyle. Not that he was wanted to or anything. Seeming cool to Gilfoyle was counterintuitive anyway.

"Cool. I don't know many people into that kind of thing. Alright, let me show you a bit about angular momentum." With that, they dove into the lesson.


End file.
